JNN 8 May , 2013 Washington : The US Defense Department has released a survey study showing a 37 % climb in sexual assault cases in the military, just two days after an officer leading Air Force’s sexual assault prevention programs was himself detained and charged with sexual battery.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, was removed from his job as head of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office after he was charged with sexual battery for allegedly grabbing a civilian woman by the breasts and buttocks.

The Pentagon study found there were 3,374 reported cases of sexual assault in 2012, up nearly 200 from the 3,192 reported in 2011. Using survey data, the department estimated there were 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact in 2012, compared to 19,000 in 2011.

More men than women reported unwanted sexual contact – 13,900 versus 12,100 – but a higher proportion of female personnel were affected – 6.1 percent, versus 1.2. percent – the study found.

Releasing the Pentagon’s annual report on sexual assault in the military, Hagel said the Defense Department was “outraged and disgusted over these very troubling allegations.” He warned that the problem of sexual assault had reached a point that it could jeopardize the military’s ability to attract and retain personnel.

The military has faced a series of embarrassing sexual assault scandals in the past year. An investigation at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, that began in 2011 has so far turned up 59 cases of sexual assault of military recruits by drill instructors.

The military has also been involved in controversial cases where the officer in charge of a court martial proceeding has thrown out the sexual assault convictions of service members. Those incidents have raised questions about whether the military can effectively deal with its sexual assault problem.

This is while an Air Force Lt. General reversed a guilty verdict in late 2012 in a major sexual assault case involving a senior air force commander.

Despite the difficulties, Hagel told reporters he did not favor removing the prosecution of sex crimes from the authority of the military chain of command.

“Some things do need to be changed,” Hagel said. “Taking it away – the … ultimate responsibility – away from the military, I think that would just weaken the system.”

Even so, Krusinski may not face a military court over his sexual battery charge because the Arlington County prosecutor Theo Stamos decided to retain jurisdiction over the case rather than relinquish it to the military. She said it did not make sense to hand the case over to the military since it took place in a civilian setting.

According to Pentagon officials, out of the 26,000 male and female soldiers that responded the sexual assault survey, 6.1 % of women and 1.2 percent of men said they had been subjected to sexual assault in the past year, ranging from rape to “unwanted sexual touching.”

Responding to the survey study and the arrest of the officer leading sexual assault prevention programs in the Air Force for sexually assaulting a woman while drunk, top US officials and congressional lawmakers expressed anger about the seemingly unstoppable sexual assault trend among the American armed forces.

“Sexual assault is a despicable crime and one of the most serious challenges facing this department,” he said. “It’s a threat to the safety and the welfare of our people and the health, reputation and trust of this institution.

“The bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this,” said President Barack Obama. “If we find out somebody’s engaging in this stuff, they’ve got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period.”

Obama, however, did not at all protest the recent reversal of a guilty verdict of a top Air Force commander for persistently engaging in sexual assault offenses against female subordinates.

Female lawmakers at a Tuesday hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, however, expressed outrage at testimonies offered by two senior Air Force officers, suggesting that they were making progress in “ending” the sexual assault problem in their branch.

“If the man in charge for the Air Force in preventing sexual assaults is being alleged to have committed a sexual assault this weekend,” said New York’s Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, “obviously there’s a failing in training and understanding of what sexual assault is, and how corrosive and damaging it is to good order and discipline.”

Gillibrand was referring to the arrest of the 41-year-old Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Krusinski for sexually handling a woman in parking lot of a restaurant in Arlington, Virginia.

Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, meanwhile, announced at the same hearing that she was holding up the nomination of Lt. Gen. Susan Helms to become the vice commander of the Air Force’s Space Command due to her unexplained decision to reverse guilty verdict of the Air Force commander convicted of sexual assault.

McCaskill said she wanted more information about why General Helms overturned a jury conviction in the sexual assault case last year.

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill from Missouri told the Air Force leaders that perceptions about the military’s handling of sexual assault cases went to the heart of the issue.

“That is the crux of the problem here, because if a victim does not believe that the system is capable of believing her, there’s no point to risking your entire career,” she said.

How difficult, she asked, would it be for a victim “to have to salute the man who had been convicted by his peers of assaulting her.”